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Foundation Stone Laying Ceremony (11th June 2005)

On 11 June, 2005 the Governor of Maharashtra, Shri S. M. Krishna laid the foundation stone of the National Center of International Security and Defence Analysis (NISDA) at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Bhavan in the premises of the University of Pune.

The Chancellor evinced keen interest in the nature and activities of NISDA. In his message he encouraged NISDA faculty and wished a successful future to NISDA.

Former UGC chairman Dr. Hari Gautam also graced the occasion.

Dr. Hari Gautam’s Address:

His Excellency, the Governor of the State of Maharashtra and the Hon’ble Chancellor of University of Pune, Prof. Ashok Kolaskar, the distinguished Vice Chancellor of the University of Pune, Prof. Gautam Sen, Sawarkar Professor of Strategic Studies and Founder Director of National Centre of International Security and the Defence analysis, Eminent academicians, Esteemed former Vice Chancellors of University of Pune, Faculty Members, Members of the Press, Ladies and Gentleman.

It is indeed a great honour and elated privilege for me to have been invited to be present at this great occasion. It is an event of history. It is a milestone in the history of higher education not only in India but the world over. The National Center of International Security and Defence analysis shall define, redefine and reorient the holistic aspect of the academic cum practical security, international security encompassing various disciplines through a inter disciplinary and multi disciplinary activities.

University Grants Commission way back on 27th November 2001 declared – “…in the interest of nation and education, the University Grants Commission has, this year approved to establish a NATIONAL CENTER OF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENCE ANALYSIS at the University of Pune”. It was then decided by the UGC to first create the National Center, which hopefully shall grow into what we believed into the “National Institute of International Security and Defence Analysis”. Rupees Five crores were awarded as the seed money for the establishment of the National Center while Rupees Sixteen crores was parked, specially earmarked for this centre to grow into the National Institute of International Security and Defence Analysis. The National Center located in the Pune had a unique and special advantage to coordinate and collaborate with around 23 defence establishments existing in the city alone. Such a combination I believe could not be possible at any other location in India.

The University of Pune is one of the foremost universities in India. It has attained the UGC status of the “University of Excellence”. The progress of this university has been directly linked with sincere commitments and immense sense of dedication on the part of dynamic and eminent Vice-Chancellor – Dr. Ashok Kolaskar. My complements to him. I also complement and congratulate Prof. Gautam Sen, Founder Director of National Center of International Security and Defence Analysis for having created this history in the field of higher education. I prey God to bless their efforts. I prey God to bless NISDA and I prey God to bless the University of Pune.

We all are great and immensely obliged to His Excellency Shri S. M. Krishna to have been with us at this historical event. He has done a great favour in laying the foundation stone of the main building of the NISDA – one of the milestone in the history of academics.
 

Prof. Gautam Sen, Founder Director of NISDA also addressed the distinguished gathering.

Prof. Gautam Sen’s address:

Your Excellency Mr. S.M. Krishna, Chancellor and Governor of the State of Maharashtra,

Dr. Hari Gautam, Former Chairman of the University Grants Commission,

Prof. Ashok Kolaskar, Vice Chancellor, University of Pune,

Former Vice Chancellors – Dr. Ram Takawale, Dr. V G Bhide and Dr. Vasant Gowarikar,

Colleagues, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

On behalf of the University of Pune and NISDA, I am taking this opportunity to welcome all of you for today’s function which has been organized to record the formal laying of the Foundation Stone of the building which will house NISDA and the FM Radio Station of University of Pune in the hands of Mr. S M Krishna, the Chancellor and the Governor of the State of Maharashtra. Both have great significance as well as relevance for the academic community.

NISDA represents the effort to bridge the gap between the realms of ideas and the domain of public policy making while the FM radio Station represents the extension of the Information Technology in the very core of existence of the University on a day-to-day basis.

Some twenty five years back, on a cold December night in 1980, I received a call at Boston from late Mr. P.V.R. Rao, the former Defence Secretary and President of the Asian Development Bank. In his typical characteristic way he told me that my eight-year holiday in the United States as graduate student and as a research associate was over. I was asked to return back to India and create a National Center for the study of national security affairs within the University system. A few months later when I formally joined the Department of Defence Studies at the University of Pune to hold the first endowed chair professorship in defence studies in India, I realized that the old man has had the last laugh on my carefree life style at Harvard and the MIT.

National security analysis was then conducted within the fortified domain of bureaucratic organizations viz. the Ministries of Defence, External affairs, Home etc. The study of national security affairs by incorporating the core values and the civilizational pre conditions of a nation state by the academia in the institutes of higher education was nonexistent. The gap between national security analysis which was policy oriented and national security studies which was policy relevant was enormous.

Your Excellency, one of your illustrious predecessors, Air Chief Marshal Latif was the then Governor of the state of Maharashtra and with whom I had interacted in the Joint Planning Staff while I was a staff officer at the Army Headquarters during my earlier career in the Indian Army. He and Professor V G Bhide, the then Vice Chancellor of the University of Pune came to my aid and with their help changed the existing name of the Department to Department of Defence and Strategic Studies (DDSS). I also created the National Security Forum (NSF) whose founding members were Mr. Ram Sathe, former foreign secretary, Admiral J G Nadkarni, former Chief of the Naval Staff and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, Air Marshal Y B Malshe, former Vice Chief of the Air Staff amongst others. The NSF was addressed regularly by the serving Service Chiefs, Ambassadors, Academics including Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh in May 1991, when he was the Chairman of the University Grants Commission just before he took over as the Minister of Finance. The NSF soon became the Center of Advance Strategic Studies (CASS), an independent NGO with Admiral J G Nadkarni as the first Director of CASS and continues to be housed within the DDSS. The rest is history.

Having initiated the system as I have indicated earlier along with the incorporation of Sawarkar Memorial and BC Joshi Memorial Lecture series, creation of Chhatrapati Shivaji Chair on Policy Studies with an endowment from the Indian Army and the Resident Scholars Program funded by the Indian Army, I was quite content by 2001, that I had created a tolerably good department for the study of national security affairs till this gentleman sitting next to you, Dr. Hari Gautam, the then Chairman of the UGC decided that I had not done enough as yet. Your Excellency, in a lighter vane, may I add that a conspiracy was hatched between him and Professor Ashok Kolaskar against me – the outcome being NISDA which you have inaugurated formally by laying the foundation stone of its building today.

NISDA is the first National Center to be an integral part of a university department in any Indian University. NISDA has quickly gone ahead and instituted the first Chair Professor of Air Power Studies by creating an endowment fund for the same. NISDA has similar plans to create an endowed Chair Professorship for Naval Studies. Empirically, between NISDA and the DDSS there are three chair professors, two full professors, one reader, two lecturers, fourteen resident scholars from the Indian Army, one research associate and two project associates. From a two-member faculty in 1980, NISDA-DDSS conglomerate is the largest entity in any Indian University dedicated to study national security affairs. The two memorial lecture series have been addressed by Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam the present President of India, late Nani Palkhiwala, the serving Service Chiefs of the Indian Armed forces, Ambassadors, Chairmen of the Atomic Energy Commission, Governor of State, eminent educationalist, scientists and many others since 1982. We will soon be bringing out a published volume of these public lectures delivered under the two memorial lecture series.

NISDA’s mission is to create human resources, expertise and a school of thought to contribute to strategic policy making to safeguard our national interests and harmonize them with universal security concerns. Security is no longer the responsibility of the Armed Forces alone. The world in the post cold war period has been overtaken by the information revolution. The country today has to be more concerned about securing the non-strategic dimensions of ecology, environment, pollution, energy and the rights of the unborn. In this sense, security has become an amalgamation of efforts achieved through the coercive use of force on one hand and policies at diplomatic management with security assessment on the other. We hope that NISDA operating through its five divisions viz. Modeling and Simulation Studies, Science Technology and International Security Studies, Policy and management Studies, Area studies and Non Traditional Security Studies will provide policy relevant outputs to the decision makers in our country.

Your Excellency, you will recollect that when you took over as the Governor of the State of Maharashtra, I wrote to you my views on institutions of higher education in India. It is relevant to quote the same here for record that

“I remain concerned with the existing asymmetry arising out of the present leadership in institutes of higher education responsible for guiding the destiny of research, teaching and training…. This has lead to proliferation of ideas and methodologies, which in the long run, may not contribute to consolidation and integration of efforts to further the cause of basic research so essential for converting the science of today into implementable appropriate technologies for tomorrow…. Secondly, I believe that at the core of any transformation is the ability to establish a civil society where there is a total guarantee of human security…. Modular shifts without interdependent modes have to be restrained from being institutionalized… Universities therefore have to be protected to continue as a place to remain endowed with idle capacity to think conceptually and perpetuate abstraction with logical empiricism.”

I have a fond hope that NISDA in years to come will be able to fulfill the vital role that I have enumerated in my address today.

Your Excellency, thank you for sparing your time to come to the University of Pune. It is more significant to all of us since you have been a hardcore academic having taught International Law and also the first Fulbright Scholar to become a Governor of State in India. Please consider University of Pune as your own and give us the privilege to share your thoughts with us